Yes We Did (Experience Obama’s Victory at Grant Park)
Friday, November 7th, 2008During the celebration at Grant Park on Tuesday night, I kept an eye on a young couple off to my left. They danced slightly, making sure not to upset the young children in their arms.
While John McCain gave his concession speech on the jumbotron a hundred yards away – a moment so surreal that I kept saying it over and over into Claire’s ear – I looked over at the family again and again.
You’re some lucky kids, I thought. You’re going to grow up in a world that doesn’t have George Bush or someone like him at the wheel. You get to have Barack Obama.
Claire and I, like many people, obsessed over this election. We sent each other links about Palin and Obama and McCain and Hasselbeck and Olbermann and Tucker Bounds all day long, and then we would recap our findings later that evening after I changed out of my work clothes. We traveled to Indiana to knock on doors. Claire recorded a political piece for Chicago Public Radio. I asked election questions through a ham radio for a Huffington Post piece.
Obama or bust. Obama. Or. Bust.
And we got Obama. No bust. Not this time.
There we were in Grant Park with this young couple and their tiny children; with old and young people; with people of all colors and all races; with gay couples and nuclear families; with my pregnant wife and friends.
There we were in Grant Park when Barack Obama was announced as the next president of the United States of America. I almost:
1. Collapsed in exhaustion/exaltation.
2. Knelt down to grab a few blades of grass as mementos.
3. Grabbed one of the babies from the young couple so I could spike it to the ground as if I just scored the winning touchdown in the Super Bowl with no time left.
4. Asked each of the 750,000 celebrants downtown Chicago to pinch me.
Stop picturing me spiking a baby to the ground like a football, and start picturing an America that is once again an inspiration to the world.
It took me almost a whole week to convince Greg to spend election night downtown. He really wanted to stay home on the couch, watching the returns, yelling at the television, double-fisting his laptop and his phone, and not missing a moment of it.
I, on the other hand, wanted to be out, in the city, in Chicago, with all the thousands of other Obama supporters, whooping it up for change. I promised Greg that we’d find a cozy bar from which we could watch the footage. I advised him to wear something comfortable to work that day. I commented over and over again on what a historic night it would be and how lucky we were to be in Chicago for it. And when I scored tickets to the rally in Grant Park, he finally agreed.
The last two years (I’ve been an Obama supporter for a long time) have been a slow build to the last six months. Six months of intense obsession, of constant emails and a thousand clicks a day through all the news sites I call home. I don’t think a day has gone by in the last half year when I haven’t spoken about this election. It’s dominated my thoughts and my emotions to the point of paralyzation at times. And all because I have never so passionately believed in a leader as I have in Barack Obama. I believe in him in a way that I didn’t think my generation was capable of.
And to prove it, I’ve tried my damnedest to do my part for him this last year. I’ve given money, time, calories, words and more words in support of Barack Obama, and being there to see him win this presidential election was something that I knew I would never forget. As Greg and I left our cozy bar where we’d had dinner with friends as the early returns came in, we set out for Grant Park in awe of the streets around us. It felt like New Year’s Eve, Y2K. The streets were filled with people, filled with energy, with cheers and anticipation, and with more Barack paraphernalia than I’ve ever seen.
We stood in line for over an hour outside Grant Park, in a streaming river of people all waiting to get inside the park, to be part of this thing that we all felt part of. Cars drove by honking and waving, news traveled down the line about which states had gone blue, cheers and shouts erupting from those around us. Finally, amidst a human swarm of political passion, we slipped our way into Grant Park, crushing in amongst the thousands, all of us turning around and around, taking it all in, the crowd, the city skyline, the feeling that nothing like this had ever happened.
And just a half hour after we’d gotten inside, the giant screen showing CNN announced that Obama had taken Virginia. And then that he’d taken the presidency. I could hardly take it in. What, no fight? No contesting of ballots, or fraud, or of some other ridiculous thing? That’s it? Barack Obama has won?
Barack Obama has won.
We were all hugging and crying and the whole field tingled with something new, something no one had ever felt before, or at least hadn’t felt in a long time. My head was spinning. We’re going to end the war, I thought. People will have health care, I thought. The world will stop hating America, I thought. And then I realized how used to things I’d been, how resigned and unhopeful and uninspired I’d been these last eight years.
I’m still taking it all in. I’m still brought to tears thinking of it all, of all the different things electing Barack Obama means. I’m still taking in the idea of hope. And of what it feels like to be proud of my country and the people who live here.